Seniors lead Dixie State volleyball to Senior Day win

Delayne Daniel hit the final shot that won Saturday's game for the Dixie State volleyball team, and the senior outside hitter sheepishly smiled before her teammates mobbed her.

The Trailblazer seniors guided DSU to a four-set win over Point Loma on Saturday afternoon (25-21, 22-25, 25-21, 25-20) and finished tied for third in the PacificWest Conference behind California Baptist and champion Concordia-Irvine.

It's the fourth straight year DSU has finished third or better in the conference, but head coach Robyn Felder had mixed opinions about the third-place finish.

"We were picked second, taking third I know it wasn't what we wanted," Felder said. "But I'm like, 'Guys, we still took third place out of 14 teams,' most teams would be thrilled and, you know, it was a disappointment for us just because of where the program's been in the past few years, so next year we're heading back up."

Early in the match the Trailblazers struggled with long rallies; they lost two such rallies in the second set that prevented them from closing an early five-point deficit.

Trailing 14-9 in the third set, they finally broke through and it was Daniel, who'd endured a frustrating first couple sets, who made the big kill that turned the game around.

Senior middle blocker Lindsay Garrett still wasn't 100 percent healthy after suffering a sprained ankle about a month ago, but she put in one of her best games of the year with 16 kills and four total blocks.

One of her best sequences came in the third set, right after Daniel's kill had kick-started DSU.

"She had a double block up on her all night, and when we could pass well, we could run our middle," Felder said. "Once we were able to pass well again and split her block up, that's when (Daniel) started getting going."

Trailing 12-17, Garrett blocked a shot, then registered a kill on the next point to bring it to 14-17 and the Trailblazers eventually tied it at 17 before pulling away with the third and fourth sets.